Missouri ProStart® Recognitions
Missouri ProStart Educators Of Excellence
Missouri ProStart 2023-24 Educator of Excellence - Jenn Turner
In five short years, Jenn has grown the ProStart program in the Independence School District to remarkable achievements. Classroom experiences partnered with industry connections has allowed the students to excel, placing first in the 2023 Missouri ProStart Invitational Management competition and second in the Culinary Competition. Jenn’s ProStart teams have consistently ranked in the top five placings in Culinary and Management competitions.
Preparing students for possible careers in the restaurant and food service industry is the basis of the ProStart program. This means developing connections with industry partners is critical to program success. Program growth in the Independence School District combines school district support, a supportive Advisory Board, community members and meaningful industry connections.
A successful ProStart program consists of many partners working together to provide the best educational experience available for students, the future of our industry.
In Jenn’s words, “I believe it is important that we expand the viewpoint of the students to more than just restaurants. Our industry is vast and full of a wide variety of careers they might not even know exist. To this point, we have a range of business partners that can share their different backgrounds, education, and experiences to help broaden the students’ perspective.”
We are very pleased to recognize Jenn Turner as the Missouri ProStart Educator of Excellence for 2024.
Missouri ProStart 2022-23 Educator of Excellence - Rachel Mitchel
Rachel has been teaching ProStart for 10 years. She holds the Missouri Department of Education teaching credentials in Family Consumer Sciences and Human Services, the National Restaurant Association’s Certified Secondary Food-service Educator Certification as well as the Serv Safe certification. She has a Master of Arts in Teaching as well as a Master of Education and Innovation from Webster University. Rachel has been approved through Missouri State University to offer her students dual credit to assist with their college careers. She also received the Greater Kansas City Restaurant Association Educator of the Year award in 2019.She has been active in community events, catering for the Greater Kansas City Restaurant Association Gilbert Robertson Dinners, Inaugural Balls, as well as district and school events. Her students have participated in numerous catering events, attended field trips to hospitality and culinary venues and competed in various competitions including FCCLA Culinary and Baking and Pastry as well as the Missouri ProStart Invitational.
Guest speakers to her classroom have included individuals from the Kansas City Chef’s Association, Pop Culture Popcorn, Chick-Fil-A, Sullivan University, Johnson and Wales University and the Clay County Health Department. Field trips to the Gordan Ramsey Steakhouse, The Grunauer, Lidias, Shatto Dairy Farm and Hilton KC have allowed students to experience the wide variety of career pathways available in the hospitality industry.
Rachel’s industry connections include making countless business partnerships in the Northland and Kansas City area. These connections and partnerships have helped provide the best experience possible for her ProStart students.
We are very pleased to recognize Rachel Mitchell as the Missouri ProStart Educator of Excellence for 2023.
Missouri ProStart 2021-22 Educator of Excellence - Andrea O'Bannon
Andrea O’Bannon has a Bachelor of Arts in Fiction Writing and Russian History from Sarah Lawrence College. She also has an Associates in Occupational Studies from The Culinary Institute of America. She was the Executive Chef for seven years at Dharma Blue in Pensacola Florida. In addition, she has worked in various other positions in the kitchen such as head baker, prep cook, line cook and kitchen manager. She has worked in restaurants as large as 900 seats (The Flying Bridge in Falmouth, Mass) to as small as 50 seats (Curtis and Schwartz Café in Northampton, Mass). She has worked independent establishments like Dharma and corporate establishments like Bonefish Grill.Her alma mater has the motto of “Preparation is Everything”. She has carried that with her throughout her career in restaurants and into her second career as a chef instructor. She teaches her students how important it is to be prepared. It doesn’t matter what you are going to do just be PREPARED. Do the research, the leg work, and the planning.
Missouri ProStart 2020-21 Educator of Excellence - Nora Hill
Nora Hill is Park Hill High School’s ProStart teacher. Nora has taught ProStart for thirteen of the fifteen years she has been employed with the Park Hill District. In the summer of 2006, she attended the MoEFACS summer conference as a new public-school teacher. At the conference, Nora was introduced to the ProStart program, and she instantly knew her students needed this program. As she continued researching the program, she became even more enthused that it aligned perfectly with Park Hill’s Continuous School Improvement Plan (CSIP). Nora collaborated with Missouri’s ProStart Director to introduce ProStart to Park Hill’s administrators. She demonstrated the alignment of the program with the employability skills component of the District’s CSIP. Nora was also very excited about the additional opportunities that were offered through the ProStart culinary competitions and the National Certificate of Achievement. Park Hill High School and Park Hill School District enthusiastically agreed to begin implementing the program in the 2007-2008 school year becoming among the first ProStart program in Missouri.
Nora attended the National Restaurant Association ProStart summer institute where she worked alongside and learned from chefs at the University of South Carolina. Nora has completed three levels of the ProStart teacher training and will soon reach the Certified Secondary Foodservice Educator (CSFE) status. She regularly attends the MoEFACS summer conference where she participates in culinary trainings and industry site visits in order to keep current in her practice and to continuously improve her instructional strategies.
For the past ten years, Nora has taken teams to state culinary competitions through the ProStart program where her students have earned top honors, taking second and third place in the state. She also leads culinary teams with the Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) STAR Events Regional Competition.
Nora has received thousands of dollars in new equipment for the Park Hill District by writing grants on weekends and holidays. In 2019, the ProStart classroom was outfitted with a new washer/dryer set, commercial fryers, commercial Kitchen Aid stand mixers and numerous small wares. All were purchased with classroom grants from the partnership she developed with the Greater Kansas City Restaurant Association (GKCRA). She is relentless about keeping the classroom up to date and supplying students with industry like equipment. She understands the importance of her students being industry ready when they leave the classroom.
Nora has developed strong networks and partnerships within her local community. Park Hill ProStart students have served appetizers at the Greater Kansas City Restaurant Association Inaugural Ball and have served numerous including the Park Hill School Board through a variety of on-campus culinary opportunities.
Through collaboration with the Platte County Health Department to certify all ProStart 1 students with a Food Handler’s Permit certifying each student for five years. Park Hill ProStart 2 students regularly travel to local restaurants for industry site visits. Nora is very thankful for the local opportunities that restaurants and food service industries provide her students.
Nora enjoys staying in touch with former students of her ProStart program. She recently visited with a former student about his journey from Park Hill ProStart to his current status of an American Culinary Federation (ACF) certified Sous Chef. This student shared that the skills he learned in ProStart aided him throughout his education that resulted in him earning an Associate Degree in Culinary Science. In addition, a former student earned the National Certificate of Achievement and continued her education at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, New York.
In closing, Nora will never miss an opportunity to share her passion about the importance of education and this industry. She is confident there will always be a place in the industry where her students will be welcomed and will experience great success. She has continually been an excellent example to other ProStart educators providing support and guidance. Her nomination for this award by another ProStart educator is just one example of recognition of her skills by her colleagues. Nora is a wonderful example of a talented professional ProStart educator.
We are very honored to award Nora Hill, Park Hill High School, Kansas City, MO, the 2020 Missouri ProStart Educator of Excellence.
Missouri ProStart 2019-20 Educator of Excellence - Jody Fowler
Missouri ProStart is proud to announce Ms. Jody Fowler as the 2019 Missouri ProStart Educator of the Year. For 15 years of Jody’s 19-year teaching career, she has taught ProStart. Currently Jody is teaching at Liberty North High School in Liberty Missouri.Throughout her career Jody has valued continually developing her skills to be able to give her students the best educational experience possible. She has attended National Restaurant Association Summer Institutes, ServSafe training, fall and spring Missouri ProStart workshops, MoEFACS Summer Conference trainings and summer workshops at The Art Institute and Johnson & Wales.
Jody has participated in Greater Kansas City Restaurant Association functions such as educator meetings, showcase mixers and the Gilbert/Robinson Awards Dinner. She also follows MRAEF on social media and site them on tweets about her students.
Her students have catered the Liberty Public Schools (LPS) Foundation’s, $50 a plate, major fundraiser, “Education Uncorked” for the past 4 years with rave reviews. They have provided the food for the LPS Diversity Festival since it’s conception. This year they fixed a dinner for 75 visiting students at 3 pm, a dinner for 125 vendors in another room at 5 pm, and then 10 varieties of cultural samplings (borscht, potstickers, tamales, etc.) for around 500 community members from 6-8 pm (approx. 3500 - 4500 total). All in the same day. They prepare dinner for 140 staff members during the spring and fall parent-teacher conferences, cater various sports banquets, provide treats for “Breakfast with Experts” every other month, prepare trays of desserts for local community service workers during National Education Week and provide hands-on lunch activities for 27 children on “Take Your Child to Work Day”. Students have been asked to demo functions at the local library, do meal prep for a wedding shower and help serve at a wedding reception. They compete yearly in the Missouri ProStart Competition and have competed twice in the Johnson County Community College culinary competition. Liberty North students compete in the FCCLA Culinary Star Events and received 1st place regionally in February. They compete at the FCCLA National Skill Demonstration, this year taking 1st place in knife skills and last year taking 3rd in knife skills & chicken fabrication. Jody’s classes tour area restaurants, culinary schools, markets and shopped as a class at the Restaurant Depot. She also has various restaurant owners speak to her classes and critique student projects.
When asked to share a “moving ProStart experience” this is what Jody shared:
“Throughout the years I’ve had many students that struggle with school but excel in my ProStart class. Frank had decided to drop out of school until he joined ProStart. He loved it and wanted to be on the competition team, so he worked hard to get his grades up. He was able to graduate and went on to Sullivan for culinary. Raul said he took the ProStart class to meet girls. He is quite a character and was headed down a questionable path! The night of our first major catering event, he hugged me and said he finally knew what he wanted to do in life. Since graduating he’s taken classes at JCCC, worked at Fogo de Chao, Freshwater, and Eddie V’s. He visits periodically to share stories about his restaurant experiences and thank me for setting him on this path. This fall, I have an interesting mix of students from a variety of backgrounds. In the beginning, most seemed very unsure of the tasks I laid out for the semester. There wasn’t a lot of experience or ability and they weren’t sure they’d be able to do what I expected. To everyone’s amazement, they completed each catering event beautifully. One night after we finished a major district catering event, I sent a ‘Thank You’ text to the students that stayed so late. This was a response from a boy that has struggled with finding his niche: ‘I had a lot of fun and to be honest that was the first time I've taken a lot of pride for doing something so big. Seeing everyone enjoy what I helped create was a big confidence booster. I know it wasn't all me but I'm happy I got to be a part and continue to be a part of stuff like this.’”
We are very honored to award Jody Fowler, Liberty North High School, Liberty, MO the 2019 Missouri ProStart Educator of the Year.
Missouri ProStart National Awards
ACTE / Family Consumer Science Education Citation Award - Presented to Missouri Restaurant Association
At the annual conference of the National Association of Career and Technical Educators (ACTE), in San Antonio, Texas, the Missouri Restaurant Association was named the recipient of the 2018 Citation Award. This award is presented to one business or industry person or group each year in recognition for outstanding support of Family Consumer Sciences.
Missouri Restaurant Association (MRA) received this award for actively supporting and reinforcing the partnership between Missouri Restaurant Association and Family Consumer Sciences and Human Services Section of the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). This relationship has been in place for 16 years and is the basis for the existence of the ProStart program in Missouri. ProStart in Missouri is taught in 97 schools throughout the state with over 5,500 students actively learning about culinary and restaurant management careers.
Leone Herring, Missouri ProStart Coordinator was present to accept the award on behalf of the Missouri Restaurant Association. Missouri ProStart educators attending the conference were also present at the awards ceremony.
ACTE / Family Consumer Science Education Outstanding Service Award - Leone Herring Receives Outstanding Contributions Award
The Outstanding Contributions Award was presented to Leone Herring by Rachel Gonzalez, Association of Career and Technical Educators (ACTE), Family Consumer Sciences Vice President. The award was presented by the ACTE Family and Consumer Science Division at the ACTE Visions Conference.
Leone spent 12 years at the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Three years were spent developing professional development materials for the Office of Special Education. For nine years, Leone worked in the Office of College and Career Readiness in Family Consumer Sciences and Human Services. She served for five years as a Supervisor with responsibilities for Hospitality and Tourism programming, MoEFACS Summer Conference, curriculum development and educator support. In January 2014, Leone became the Director of the Family Consumer Sciences and Human Services Division (FCS&HS). During this time, new FCS&HS programs were developed, new district programs were started, and programs became industry connected.
In 2017-18, Leone traveled the state visiting over 100 school districts conducting workshops for educators, administrators, and core data staff discussing FCS&HS approved program requirements, alignment with industry standards, Perkins and DESE funding and program requirements. After four and half years as Director, Leone retired in June 2018.
Missouri ProStart Success Stories
Youth Wins National Cooking Competition, Will Compete Internationally
 Clearwater High School graduate Nathan Yount is making a name for himself in the culinary world. After graduating from CHS in 2016, Yount attended East Central Culinary Program and graduated there in 2018. Yount became interested in culinary while a high school student. He participated in Christy Johnson’s award-winning ProStart program. Yount spends his days working under award-winning chef Paul Kampff at the St. Louis Country Club. Outside of work, he is an active competitor in culinary competitions. “I love the pressure of the kitchen,” Yount said, “especially a competition kitchen.”When he was selected to participate in the 2019 National Jeune Commis Competition in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania June 1, he was taken aback. “It was like nothing I had ever done before. You have to do a three-course meal from a mystery basket that can consist of anything,” he explained, “but every competitor gets the same basket and you get thirty minutes to write out a menu you want to prepare. You then have three and a half hours to cook it.” “The competition is organized by the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs organization, which is the oldest food and wine society in the world. It’s a great honor to be selected to compete,” said Chef Mike Palazzola, East Central College culinary program coordinator. “Competitions of this magnitude require the highest standards of culinary skill and execution of dishes.” Yount said he understood what was at stake and used his knowledge from East Central College and his real-world experience to create something impressive and unique. When he got his basket at the competition, he got to work. |
The judges were impressed. He took home first place. “When they called my name, I had a huge feeling of relief,” Yount said. “It was a feeling like ‘this is why you cannot ever give up on yourself. You always have to push through.’ All of my hard work had paid off. When I walked across the stage to accept my award, I felt like a new person.”
“Nathan has incredible drive,” said Palazzola. “He was the type of student who would never shy away from a challenge. I’m very proud of this young man.” He’s not done competing yet. Yount will now represent the United States in the International Jeunes Chefs Rôtisseurs Competition in Calgary, Canada in September. According to its website, it is “a challenging competition that helps the development of the young chefs by showcasing their talents and creativity in an international arena.”
“This will be my first time out of the country,” explained Yount. “I’m going to practice every second I get. It is truly the biggest competition of my life.” “Getting to compete in this competition is an incredible accomplishment itself,” said Palazzola. “No one can ever take from you what you learn on a journey like this one. It sticks with you for life.”
